Have a 2001 Sportsman that I picked up used last week. It wasnt running and i figured out the coil wire was grounding out and now it runs great. Had it working fine with kick start or electric start, but yesterday I put all the plastics back on and now the electric start is not working (nothing happens when I hit the switch)

Battery is brand new and the battery fuse is good. There is power to the starter relay, but doesn't seem like there is any signal to it when I hit the switch.

I've checked all the exposed wires and connections and everything is attached and tight so not sure what the deal is?? Maybe when I did the handlebar contortions to get the front plastic back on somehow the start switch got damaged??

Any suggestion on what to look for or how to troubleshoot the starter switch??

 

This little plastic tipped brake light/starter interlock switch that sends power to the relay was always a problem. You can try to jump the wires together,but I don't know if that will work. If it doesn't, it's not that expensive to just replace with a new one. Item #9 Dirt Cheap Yamaha, Honda, Arctic Cat & Polaris OEM Parts & Accessories – Cycle Parts Warehouse

 

OPT,
Thanks for the response. I took a look at my left brake lever and there is an opening where I assume this switch is supposed to be, but it's not there now (and apparently was not there when I bought it). Based on this, I have to think the previous owner must have wired it to bypass this function somehow???

Also, as an update... I started it up this afternoon with the kickstart and it fired right up. Only problem is when I turned the key off it kept running, so I turned the left thumb switch to off and it still kept running, and then I pulled the tether swtich and it still kept running. After about 10 seconds of me cycling the key back and forth and the thumb switch it finally turned off, but something obviously seems screwy. I did not have time to try to recreate it, but will try tomorrow.

Any chance you could explain how all three of these are tied together? Since my thumb starter is not working, is the thumb run switch possibly bad also and overiding the other two kill features?

Appreciate your help!

 

Pull the plastic cover down from the back of the ignition switch. We've found a bunch of these where the wires have broken loose from the solder. Could be the problem on killing this machine.

 

None of the left hand switches are responding, We have replace left hand starting control unit and left hand brake with switch. Everything works correctly only when we run a ground from the battery to the ground wire on the left hand brake switch. Machine starts and runs fine till we remove the temporary ground wire and then everything dies. I cannot find any other ground wires with bad connection. Any Ideas ??

 

Try a extra ground from the motor to frame.